Death and respect

The other day, P.S.V.L had a post about the meaning of Funerals that I thought was interesting and as I had talked about the Afterlife for the first week of the Pagan Blog Project, I thought I would do a response to this.

I will agree that this lack of respect for Death is a part of the overculture that most of us in the West hear and see. I watched some videos about Dia de Muretos in mexico recently, and the treatment of death is quite different from how it is dealt with in America. Death is not thought of really; it also a somber event.

However, what i saw in the videos on Day of the Dead is IMO a better treatment for the dead. It is a party for the dead. Food is left at the house altar and the graves of the deceased. The three days of day of the dead while it is filled with merry making, is still for the dead. This is similar to Samhain that many pagans celebrate as well.

The fact is that in the west, we tend to ignore the dead for the most part; which does not help us when dealing with death or dealing with our ancestors. Samhain, Dia de Muretos and similar events for the dead; while not funerals themselves does help with remembering the dead and making sure that we keep them in mind.